Part 6 (1/2)

”How would someone have enticed Betti to leave her cage and go into Bert's?”

”They may have used M&M's.”

”M&M's?” the lieutenant asked.

”M&M's were used in the writing program that was in place before I came here,” Dr. Simone explained. ”Betti partic.i.p.ated in that program and, like the others, developed a craving for them. We still use them as little bribes to get the animals to do things.”

”Who would have known about that?” I asked.

She made a shrugging gesture with her hands. ”Anyone who worked with the chimps. I mean people in the lab.”

”Could you possibly get us a list of names?” the lieutenant asked.

”I'll try,” she said. ”It might not be complete.”

The lieutenant thanked her in leaving and paused to commiserate with her, letting her know in a subtle way that he realized her charges were something more to her than mere animals.

We stopped by the crime scene again so that the lieutenant could tell one of the crew to keep an eye out for M&M's.

”We've already found some,” the officer said, and indicated a clear plastic bag with some of the candies in it along with a distinctive brown smear.

Next we met with Hank, the technician in charge of audiovideo security. He indicated the camera, an un.o.btrusive black device with a short lens that covered the cage area. As he showed us, the cable from the camera to the monitor and the digital recorder had been not only cut but also reconnected to a router programmed to a device attached to the pay phone in the booth next to the visitor cloakroom. A sign on the booth said OUT OF ORDER OUT OF ORDER. The thing was wired into the phone in a way that made Hank, a burly fellow with an engaging face, shake his head. ”Whoever did this knew what they were doing.”

”What do you mean?” Lieutenant Tracy asked.

”I'd say, when they wanted to see what was going on and to tape it at the same time, all they had to do was dial this number.”

”Wouldn't the phone company have a record?” I asked.

He shrugged. ”You could try them, but I doubt it. They probably phoned from another booth. There's other ways around it as well.” He attached a small video screen to the device on the telephone and showed us how the video camera had been adjusted to take in just the cage where Bert and Betti were found.

The lieutenant and I finally went up to my office. Doreen brought us coffee. I could not sit still. I paced diagonally corner-to-corner while the lieutenant watched me pensively.

”The two cases are obviously related,” I said, stating the obvious.

”But not really the same.”

”Yes.” But for the moment I was too agitated with anger and frustration to think straight. I sat down and took a couple of deep breaths.

Lieutenant Tracy went on. ”The Ossmann-Woodley case could be murder. This looks more like an accident.”

”Yes, yes, but a kind of deliberate accident.”

The lieutenant's frown eased as he picked up on my meaning. ”The way accidents occur when someone is testing something.”

”Exactly. They may be trying to calculate exact doses or ratios of that mix Cutler described for us. Which is what may have happened to Ossmann and Woodley. But...if both cases were deliberate and made to look like accidents, experiments gone wrong...” I paused, and the lieutenant waited. ”Then what exactly would the motive be unless...unless it is part of some grotesque scheme to get me out of the museum.”

”How realistic is that?”

”I don't know. They want the lab and the revenue it brings in. The university itself would never sanction such means, but there's a cabal doing everything it can to discredit me. But you're right, Lieutenant, it's a stretch. At the same time, you might want to question Malachy Morin...”

”The fat guy involved in the death of Elsa Pringle?'

”The very man.”

”We'll bring him in.”

”Good. And have someone leak the timing of his arrival to the television newspeople.”

He gave one of his rare smiles. We spoke about what to do next. I called one of the mammalian specialists in the Biology Department and asked him to a.s.sist Dr. Cutler in a postmortem.

With the lieutenant's a.s.sistance I dictated a news release to Doreen setting out the facts as tersely as possible. We checked it over and had her fax it to our priority list. The phone started ringing immediately. Amanda Feeney-Morin, in that peremptory tone of hers, demanded to know every last detail. I told her the matter was under investigation and that I would keep her and others up to date with any developments. She persisted, asking a lot of insinuating questions designed to make it seem we are covering things up.

The lieutenant agreed with me that, given the implications of what had happened and the intense media interest, it would be best to hold a press conference. Accordingly, I secured Margaret Mead Auditorium for one in the afternoon and had Doreen contact our list with that information. Lieutenant Tracy, after talking to Chief Murphy of the SPD, agreed to conduct the conference with me. As best we could, we went over probable questions and arrived at responses we deemed as candid as we could make them.

In the midst of these preparations, Malachy Morin called to ask me why I was conducting a press conference without his authorization. I'm afraid I lost my temper. I told the man that he was a poor deluded wretch to think that he had any authority over anything that happened at the Museum of Man. I told him he was perfectly welcome to call a press conference of his own and share his considerable ignorance with anyone so feebleminded as to take seriously anything he would have to say about anything. I then gently hung up the receiver.

Now, I want to go on record as saying that, in the course of my career in dealing with the press, I have met many thoughtful, diligent, intelligent, and responsible journalists. And it is clear that a democracy cannot function without an active Fourth Estate. But even in a community as small as Seaboard, there appear to be hordes of them. And so many of them are benighted beyond redemption, crude beyond credibility, and so openly hostile as to be comic. One young man, after making a dramatic entrance in a long, swirling overcoat that looked like a bathrobe, asked me in a challenging manner some long unintelligible question with the phrase ”s.e.x torture” thrown in. I simply shook my head and said I didn't know what he was talking about.

Another, wearing raked-back hair and those squinty little gla.s.ses you see in photographs of W.B. Yeats, asked me if Bert and Betti were a ”breeding pair.”

I answered that we no longer had a breeding program at the Pavilion and that the two chimps had been placed together in a single cage by persons unknown and without any authorization.

”If the chimps are not allowed to breed, how do they take care of their s.e.xual needs?”

When I responded facetiously that we did not disclose details about the s.e.x lives of our chimpanzees out of respect for their privacy, I was taken entirely seriously.

”Was Bert still in a program for recovering alcoholics?” someone else asked.

”No. Bert completed that program and had been sober for more than three months at the time of his death.”

Amanda Feeney-Morin sat right up front, poised, I knew, to make slurs disguised as questions. Right on cue, she stood up. ”Given what's been happening at the Museum of Man over the past few months, Mr. de Ratour, are you going to resign as Director?”

”Absolutely not.”

”Have you considered, given what's been happening, turning over administration of the museum to the university?”

”Absolutely not.”

To be fair, the journalists did ask some pointed, pertinent questions that it was our responsibility to answer. One of the network reporters, who had flown from Boston, asked the lieutenant if the deaths of the chimps confirmed his suspicions concerning the Ossmann-Woodley case.

The officer nodded. ”The similarities are obvious and, of course, we're exploring any links it might have to this case.”

”Is the Genetics Lab as vulnerable to break-ins as the Pavilion?” one sharp young woman asked me.